352 



FAGACEAE 



monly -10 to 75 but not rarely 100 to 125 feet tall, -with a great crowu which, 

 in tj'pieal form, is broader than high, and whose spreading limbs finally end 

 in long and slender pendulous branchlets reaching nearly or quite to the 

 ground; trunk 2 to 8 or even 10 feet in diameter and 10 to 30 feet in height; 

 bark on the main tnniks 1 to 41/2 inches thick, dark brown or sometimes ashen 

 gray, and checked nearly to the wood into plates 1 or 2 inches across, the 

 plates on typical trunks cuboid but often rectangular or narrow ; leaves 3 to 

 ■4 (rareh' 6) inches long. 2 to 3 inches broad, green above, paler beneath with 

 a thin but close covering of short hairs, yellow-veined, parted to the middle 



Fig. 62. Quekcus lobata Nee. 



Typical le.if; 6, 



acorns, nat. size. 



or neai'ly to the midrib into 3 to 5 pairs of lobes; lobes most commonly broad- 

 ened towards the end. less fre(iuently pointed, coarsel.v 2 or 3-toothed at apex 

 or sometimes entire; staminate catkins 1 to 3 inches long; calyx-lobes 6 to 8, 

 linear; stamens 8 to 11; pistillate flowers mostly solitary and sessile, producing 

 acorns which mature in tlie first autumn; cup drab-brown, with a dull reddish 

 tint, deeply hemispherical and very warty or tuberculate, 1,4 to % inch deep or 

 more, and of greater diameter than the nut ; nut long conical, at first bright 

 green, later mahogany or chestnut-brown, lio to 214 inches long, i/^ to % 

 inches in diameter. 



Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, and valleys of the Sierra Nevada 

 foothills and Coast Ranges. Found as far north as Anderson and Shasta in 

 Shasta Co., and Trinity River; as far south as Fort Tejon, and Ojai Valley, 

 a few trees at San Fernando and Los Angeles. Characteristic of the richest 

 valley loams where groves of scattered trees form park-like stretches of 

 unequalled beauty. Sometimes occurring on low clay hills or in dry gravelly 

 soil, especially in a less vigorous non-weeping f(n-m. Absent from valleys 



